Global Monitor: Abortion in America

The Centers for Disease Control recently came out with their data concerning the number and characteristics of women getting abortions in the United States.

The report, covering the year 2004 (the most recent year their data covers), showed a very slight decline in the abortion rate of 1.1 percent from 2003. Still. Americans committed 839,226 legal murders on the innocent unborn in the 47 reporting states, Washington D.C., and New York City. Where was the most dangerous place to be an innocent unborn in the United States? Florida, where 91,710 abortions were committed, and New York, where 126,002 abortions were committed (91,673 abortions in New York City alone), were the two top contenders.

This put the number slaughtered in the USA’s abortion killing spree higher than Canada and Western Europe, but lower than China, Cuba, the majority of Eastern Europe and certain countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

Some 80 percent of the abortions were done on unmarried women.

While more white women (53 percent of the abortions performed) underwent abortions than other races, the abortion rate for black women was 2.9 times higher than for white women (422 per 1,000 live births for blacks, 161 per 1,000 live births for whites). The proportional difference of abortions performed on blacks and whites increased from 2.0 in 1989 to 2.9 in 2004.

Women under the age of 25 underwent most abortions (50 percent). Thirty-three percent of all abortions were performed on women 20–24 years of age.

Data collected from 27 of the reporting areas showed that Hispanic women were known to have obtained 19 percent of the abortions. However; the number of Hispanics living in the 27 areas is reflected in this numbers as “46 percent of Hispanic women in the United States resided in these reporting areas” and the report maintains that “a substantial majority of Hispanic women report themselves as white.”

Some 54 percent of abortions were performed on first time aborters; 19 percent of the women reported they had at least two previous abortions. Forty percent of women aborting had no previous live births, 32 percent had two or more.

See the Source: Lilo T. Strauss, et al, “Abortion Surveillance United States, 2004,” Centers for Disease Control, 23 November 2007, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5609a1.htm

Britain’s Out of Wedlock Problem

Since the 1970s, figures have shown a steady decline in the number of Britons marrying and the number has now slumped to its lowest level, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS). This habit of not marrying has created a shocking number of out of wedlock babies born to Britons: more than half the babies born in 2007.

In Britain, in the 1950s, one in 20 babies was born out of wedlock; in the 1970s, it was fewer than one in 10 children.

While the total figure for the UK is expected to pass the halfway mark only by 2012, this total figure is due to the fact that most immigrants are giving birth after marrying. Almost all births to Pakistani women and 80 percent of births to Indian women in Britain are legitimate. When immigrant populations are removed, the ONS figures show that over half of babies born to Britons are already out of wedlock.

Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader told the Telegraph, “We should not be surprised because for the last 20 years or more the state has connived with the metropolitan classes to tell everyone that the structure of their family does not matter in bringing up children. The Government has progressively removed any support for marriage, and the benefit system discriminates against couples who marry.”

He went on: “This is a significant social landmark hut it is also a very tragic story. People should recognize that what has happened has done more to damage the prospects of children than at any time for more than 100 years.”

ONS also predicts that the UK population could reach 71 million by 2031; immigrants and their children will account for 69 percent of the growth.

See the Source: “More than half of all British babies ‘are born out of marriage,’” Evening Standard, 14 December 2007, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23427447-details/More%20than%20hal%20of%20all%20British%20babies%20are%20born%20out%20of%20marriage /article.do?expand=true

RU 486 in Italy

Italy is on the threshold of approving the sale of RU 486 under the brand name Mifegyn by early 2008 according to the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Health Minister Livia Turco told the newspaper it was not a political choice to offer the drug. She said no European Union member-state could bar the distribution of a drug already on sale elsewhere in the 27-nation bloc.

In 2005, experimental use of RU 486 in three Italian hospitals brought protest from Catholic and conservative groups.

Corriere reported that Promed Galileo, a U.S. scientific organization of Catholic associations and medical practitioners, urged Italy’s Medicines Agency to forbid sale of the drug.

Abortion was legalized in Italy in 1978, but doctors can refuse to perform abortions as “conscientious objectors.”

See the Source: ‘Abortion pill may become available in Italy,” Agence France-Presse, 17 December 2007.

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